America's Benefit Specialist June 2023

CRITICAL-THINKING SKILLS

However, people regret the wrong decisions. Yet we make them at times because we haven’t followed the right process. Another big external issue is the overabundance of infor mation. There certainly isn’t a shortage of information or opinions on what to do about any given situation. But there isn’t a shortage of disinformation, either. Critical-thinking skills can help surface truth from the noise. That leads me to the second bucket of factors that impact the ability to apply critical thinking: human nature itself. Two internal factors hurt our chances of making the right deci sion: heuristics and biases. “Heuristic” is simply a fancy word for the shortcuts that human beings learn to implement without even thinking. Heuristics are actually helpful much of the time in everyday life. Heuristics are helpful when we’re under stress like an ur gent deadline, but don’t lead to the most accurate outcome. Biases are a bit more conscious and there are at least a doz en well-known biases in psychology, but let’s take one in par ticular to illustrate an example. One common bias is conformi ty and it was proven in a well-known research experience. The research suggests that if an individual feels the majori ty of a group is leaning toward or away from a certain choice, they will tend to go along with the group rather than voice their own opinion. Here’s the takeaway: Make sure you and your team are aware of biases and heuristics. And have a strategy to deal with them. That is the value of implementing critical-think ing skills. Next, I’ll explain how to do it. HOW TO IMPLEMENT CRITICAL-THINKING SKILLS IN THE WORKPLACE If you want to implement critical-thinking skills into the workplace, know that there are four levels of adoption: Awareness: The key here is to have a discussion with your team about the influences that are working against you. Talk with them about both the external and internal things that push us away from critical-thinking skills. Once people are aware of what’s going on, they can intervene with strategies as they feel it happening to them. Explain to them, as the leader, that your culture is about making smart decisions, that they will be rewarded for using discipline and rigor. Give your teams the ability to speak up. If they have a counterpoint, reward diversity of thought. The key here is communication. Discipline: Once you’ve created awareness, you need to in corporate discipline into decision-making. Discipline implies that you have to bring up a certain degree of willpower to overcome previous habits. One of the keys to implementing discipline is to give people tools and resources rather than just asking them to use willpower. There are many tools available to implement discipline. And I have several of them, including a checklist that I’ll share in another article.

ONCE YOUR TEAM IS CONSISTENT WITH THEIR HABITS FOR A PERIOD OF TIME, THESE HABITS WILL TURN INTO CULTURAL IDENTITY.

The important thing is to make sure that people are referring to the tool or resource as they make key decisions. Initially, make sure they are incorporating all of the key steps. Don’t let them use shortcuts. In addition to using checklists or process changes, you can require your teams use a peer review for certain key deci sions. Now we want to balance bureaucracy and time com mitments and getting things done. I get that. But the point is that challenging ourselves and gaining other perspectives is key. Habits: The third level is creating the habits inside the organization to use critical-thinking skills in all decision-mak ing processes. Building habits is when the organization shifts from conscious effort (such as relying on tools) to imple menting habits that just take over. These habits begin to run on autopilot after a period of time, which leads to people internalizing this decision-mak ing process. This is a cultural shift. In the insurance industry, our pro ducers and service teams are moving a million miles per hour. Many organizations take a few months after stage two to get to this point, but with your leadership and encourage ment, your organization will get there. Culture: The last stage is creating a true culture of using critical-thinking skills. This is when critical-thinking skills are just part of your corporate culture. Once your team is consis tent with their habits for a period of time, these habits will turn into cultural identity. I challenge you to adopt this into your corporate DNA. Make sure your people know that critical-thinking skills are a better way to come to decisions versus using anecdotal information, biases and heuristics. Make them aware of things like conformity and other biases. Tell them you value sourcing alternatives, listening to others’ perspectives and challenging the information. FINAL THOUGHTS In conclusion, here are a few key takeaways. First, criti cal-thinking skills are a way of thinking, using an approach that utilizes analysis and reasoning skills. The good news is

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